December 18, 2007

22 comments:

Consider this 'momentum' a mere bleeep on the political radar screen.McCain has alienated so many Republicans on so many issues that it would take divine intervention for him to get anywhere near the front of the pack.

One of the reasons my John McCain book was subtitled The Myth of a Maverick instead of, say, An Ideological Portrait, was that you couldn't adequately paint the latter without scraping off the scum of the former. The four-decade love affair between the media and the son/grandson of four-star Navy admirals so distorts any basic discussion that it's necessary to first point out that much of what we think we know about the man -- that he's a "man of the people," a straight-talker, a world-weary pragmatist on foreign policy -- is provably false by the senator's own words, no matter how many times you read otherwise in your morning paper.

Take this weekend's McCain endorsements in the Des Moines Register, Boston Globe, Manchester Union-Leader, and Portsmouth Herald. Not content with supporting a candidate they feel affinity for, each of these newspapers are backing a man who, in fact, does not exist.

It's bizarre to me that McMomentum comes as a "Democratic" Senator endorses him. Are there really Republican Primary voters who care what Lieberman thinks? Does the endorsement carry any weight at all?

MM, that was my thought. And it seems to me that the NYT is just hedging its bets - either the GOP nominee or the Dem nominee will be President, so push for the GOP to nominate the candidate that's closest to your own position just in case they win.

simon...it might also be, as rush limberger just said, "you have to doubt the sincerity of the NYT" because (paraphrasing) it is the most unbelievable MSM source and it is there purposfully to throw republicans off track and not vote for him...a vote for McC is a vote against the times.

well hold the lettuce simon. actually i don't think the nyt's goes to that length but it is a nice thought. i would more think that they like to toss that stuff out and see who goes crazy...rush is always a gullible target.

i'm sure sean, savage, etc. will join in the fools chorus tonight...and o'really...he will put this right up with hijacking christmas

In addition to his stands on amnesty, free speech, and all the other quibbles here, he purports to be against torture, yet he himself caved under torture and gave accurate information. I'm not criticizing him--I'm sure I'd do the same--but how does that square with being against torture because o/w others will torture our guys (they already have, him and many others) or that it produces no accurate information (he gave accurate information).

Gee, Pat, if torture is so effective, why don't we use it on everyone arrested. After all, we know they probably did it, whatever it is. Start up a campaign for "Waterboards Across America," Pat. Let's put one in every police station. Two or three in the high crime areas.

As for those foreigners you mention who torture, they also lop people's heads off with some regularity and no due process. Since they are going to do it anyway, I imagine you are all for matching them tit for tat there too.

On AmbivaBlog, Simon has wonderfully appropriate quote from Abraham Lincoln:

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

Those who are so ready to overturn our nation's laws, long-standing practices and historical ideals because "everyone else is doing it" are kith and kin of those ready to shred our civil liberties in the name of "security" or "the public good." It is they who will destroy this nation from within, not the loud and lazy leftists they so noisily and busily point to, warning all and sundry "Beware! The Enemy in our midst!" But the real enemies of our freedom are those who are happy to sacrifice it at the altar of fear.

Randy,You're taking the easy way out of an argument you don't want to engage: ad hominem attacks, moral superiority, emotional hysteria. McCain has also avoided dealing with it.

I think you're misconstruing Lincoln's point, but after all he revoked habeas corpus, so he must be just another Fascist. Check your history a little closer if you think our current delicate, high minded sensibilities were always so.